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• Preface.
• An Enquiryconcerning Political Justice: Book I.OF The Importance of Political Institutions
• Chap. I.: Introduction
• Chap. II.: History of Political Society
• Chap. III.: The Moral Characters of Men Originate In Their Perceptions
• Chap. IV.: Three Principal Causes of Moral Improvement Considered
• I. Literature
• II. Education
• III. Political Justice
• Chap. V.: Influence of Political Institutions Exemplified
• Chap. VI.: Human Inventions Capable of Perpetual Improvement
• Chap. VII.: Of the Objection to These Principles From the Influence of Climate
• Part I.: Of Moral and Physical Causes
• Part II.: Of National Characters
• Chap. VIII.: Of the Objection to These Principles From the Influence of Luxury
• An Enquiryconcerning Political Justice: Book II.PRINCIPLES Of Society
• Chap. I.: Introduction
• Chap. II.: Of Justice
• Appendix, No. I. P. 87.: Of Suicide
• Appendix, No. II.: Of Duelling
• Chap. III.: Of Duty
• Chap. IV.: Of the Equality of Mankind
• Chap. V.: Rights of Man
• Chap. VI.: Of the Exercise of Private Judgment
• An Enquiryconcerning Political Justice: Book III.PRINCIPLES Of Government
• Chap. I.: Systems of Political Writers
• Chap. II.: Of the Social Contract
• Chap. III.: Of Promises
• Chap. IV.: Of Political Authority
• Chap. V.: Of Legislation
• Chap. VI.: Of Obedience
• Appendix
• Chap. VII.: Of Forms of Government
• An Enquiryconcerning Political Justice: Book IV.MISCELLANEOUS Principles
• Chap. I.: Of Resistance
• Chap. II.: Of Revolutions
• Section I.: Duties of a Citizen
• Section II.: Mode of Effecting Revolutions
• Section III.: Of Political Associations
• Section IV.: Of the Species of Reform to Be Desired
• Chap. III.: Of Tyrannicide
• Chap. IV.: Of the Cultivation of Truth
• Section I.: Of Abstract Or General Truth
• Section II.: Of Sincerity
• Appendix, No. I. P. 233.: Of the Connexion Between Understanding and Virtue
• Appendix, No. Ii, P. 242.: Of the Mode of Excluding Visitors
• Appendix, No. Iii, P. 252.: Subject of Sincerity Resumed
• Chap. V.: Of Free Will and Necessity
• Chap. VI.: Inferences From the Doctrine of Necessity
• Chap. VII.: Of the Mechanism of the Human Mind
• Chap. VIII.: Of the Principle of Virtue
• Chap. IX.: Of the Tendency of Virtue

SECTION II.

MODE OF EFFECTING REVOLUTIONS

BOOK IV. CHAP. II. Section II. Persuasion the proper instrument:TO return to the enquiry respecting the mode of effecting revolutions. If no question can be more important, there is fortunately no question perhaps that admits of a more complete and satisfactory general answer. The revolutions of states, which a philanthropist would desire to witness, or in which he would willingly co-operate, consist principally in a change of sentiments and dispositions in the members of those states. The true instruments for changing the opinions of men are argument and persuasion. The best security for an advantageous issue is free and unrestricted discussion. In that field truth must always prove the successful champion. If then we would improve the social institutions of mankind, we must write, we must argue, we must converse. To this business there is no close; in this pursuit there should be no pause. Every method should be employed,—not so much positively to allure the attention of mankind, or persuasively to invite them to the adoption of our opinions,—as to remove every restraint upon thought, and to throw open the temple of science and the field of enquiry to allBOOK IV. CHAP. II. Section II. the world.

Those instruments will always be regarded by the discerningnot violence: mind as suspicious, which may be employed with equal prospect of success on both sides of every question. This consideration should make us look with aversion upon all resources of violence. When we descend into the listed field, we of course desert the vantage ground of truth, and commit the decision to uncertainty and caprice. The phalanx of reason is invulnerable; it advances with deliberate and determined pace; and nothing is able to resist it. But when we lay down our arguments, and take up our swords, the case is altered. Amidst the barbarous pomp of war and the clamorous din of civil brawls, who can tell whether the event shall be prosperous or miserable?

We must therefore carefully distinguish between informingnor resentment the people and inflaming them. Indignation, resentment and fury are to be deprecated; and all we should ask is sober thought, clear discernment and intrepid discussion. Why were the revolutions of America and France a general concert of all orders and descriptions of men, without so much (if we bear in mind the multitudes concerned) as almost a dissentient voice; while the resistance against our Charles the first divided the nation into two equal parts? Because the latter was the affair of the seventeenth century, and the former happened in the close of the BOOK IV. CHAP. II. Section II. eighteenth. Because in the case of America and France philosophy had already developed some of the great principles of political truth, and Sydney and Locke and Montesquieu and Rousseau had convinced a majority of reflecting and powerful minds of the evils of usurpation. If these revolutions had happened still later, not one drop of the blood of one citizen would have been shed by the hands of another, nor would the event have been marked so much perhaps as with one solitary instance of violence and confiscation.

Lateness of event desirable There are two principles therefore which the man who desires the regeneration of his species ought ever to bear in mind, to regard the improvement of every hour as essential in the discovery and dissemination of truth, and willingly to suffer the lapse of years before he urges the reducing his theory into actual execution. With all his caution it is possible that the impetuous multitude will run before the still and quiet progress of reason; nor will he sternly pass sentence upon every revolution that shall by a few years have anticipated the term that wisdom would have prescribed. But, if his caution be firmly exerted, there is no doubt that he will supersede many abortive attempts, and considerably prolong the general tranquillity.